South China Sea

The recent official visit (Dec. 11 – 13, 2015) of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India and the 44-paragraph “Joint Statement on India and Japan Vision 2025” signed by Mr. Abe and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not only a watershed in India-Japan relations but also an affirmation of a new narrative that joins the Indian Ocean region with the Asia Pacific region at the hip.

South China Sea and China’s intractability on resolution of its South China Sea disputes with its ASEAN disputants found China strategically cornered with the dominating focus of global and regional leaders expressing deep concerns at these two important Summits held in Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur over the weekend with China still noticeably obdurate and clinging to its aggressive stand.

It is a known fact that the first aircraft carrier base of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is located at Dalian, in Liaoning province; the carrier ‘Liaoning’ was commissioned into China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy on September 25, 2012.

China’s hegemonistic belligerence and aggressive brinkmanship postures on its contentious claims to the maritime expanses of the Western Pacific involving Japan, Philippines and Vietnam have seemingly impelled Vietnam and the United States in the quest of a strategic partnership.

South China Sea seems inevitably headed towards witnessing a military showdown with a revisionist and strategically arrogant China rigidly insistent on altering the status quo in the South China Sea in defiance of United States advisories to halt construction of artificial islands to enforce its sovereignty claims in disputed waters.